


caught off guard by you

by callunavulgari



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 06:57:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11709201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: “I just got you back,” Prompto says quietly, words muffled into the curve of Noctis’s neck. There are soft, silken hairs along Noctis’s jawline now where before there had just been smooth skin. He rubs his cheek against it, touches reverent fingers to the lines of Noctis's face. The broader jaw, the defined brow, all the places where his baby softness has eased slowly and carefully into adulthood.Somewhere, hidden away from the rest of the world, Noctis had grown into a king.Ten years - ten horrible years - and Prompto would have given anything to watch it happen.





	caught off guard by you

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a great deal longer than it is, hence the pretty drastic time skip. But I liked what I had written and realized that if I didn't post this now I probably never would. So I cleaned it up a little and finished the part that I wanted to write. I didn't finish the other part that I wanted to write, where they come and collect his body from the throne room because without a lengthy love story behind it, the scene seemed too out of place.

When Noctis was younger, his father had told him that as the crown prince, he didn’t have the luxury of being open with his affections. At the time, Noctis had assumed that meant perfecting his poker face. Never allowing a glimpse of the person that he was inside. Maintaining an air of mystery.

It was only later that he realized that maybe that wasn’t all his father had meant.

Kings don’t run in the hall.

Kings don’t leave the palace.

Kings don’t-

It became a kind of game. Picture doing something and then try to imagine his father doing it. If Noctis couldn’t do it - couldn’t call up an image of his father doing that exact same thing - then he wouldn’t do it either.

While a good lesson for a king, it likely wasn’t something he should have put into practice as a boy.

It lead to him being seen as cold, reticent, and above all, unapproachable.

He didn’t mind, much. There wasn’t much that he needed from other people. He had his father, his guards, and Luna. That was all he needed.

Prompto was unexpected.

It took him a few years, but in the end, Prompto succeeded where others before him had failed, smoothly sidestepping all of Noctis’ defenses and ignoring the enormous barricades that he’d erected around his person. Prompto, a simple schoolmate lacking the wealth and pedigree of the heirs and heiresses that had tried to get close to the crowned prince in the past, had inserted himself into Noctis’ life without so much as a ripple of discontent.

Prompto was Noctis’ first real friend.

His first real… anything, really. His closest friend. The first and only person who seemed to see him as Noctis first and prince after. So much so, that it made things difficult at times. He saw Noctis, not the prince, when his smiles were too bright around the edges. When his touches lingered too long and he stepped too close.

Prompto, while many things, was never exactly subtle. He wasn’t Noctis, who hid his thoughts behind a meticulously sculpted mask. Prompto was never shy about his affection. He wore his heart on his sleeve, with honest eyes and an all too expressive mouth.

Kings don’t-

Noctis took his cue from the others. He ignored it. The signs, the looks, the touches. Prompto may have been an open book, but he wasn’t very good at confrontation. Given time, he’d get over it. Noctis would marry Luna, and everything would be as it should be.

After all, it’s what his father would have done.

What a king would do.

.

When Prompto was younger, his mother told him to be strong.

_Be strong. Be quiet. Be sa-_

She had been crouched beside him, her head tilted towards his and her lips at his ear when they’d pulled him away from her. They’d taken him, and he’d never know if it was his father who volunteered him or if they’d just chosen randomly - just like he’d never hear the end of his mother’s sentence.

He’d done a lot of guessing, between the experiments.

It wasn’t very difficult to fill in the blanks, anyway.

Be strong. Be quiet. Be safe.

Be safe.

He was always bad at that one.

But he kept to himself. He was quiet, never acted out, and when the time was right, he took his chances. He escaped his prison and hitched a ride to the nearest town. Stole someone’s laundry right off their clothesline, and made his way towards Insomnia, because it was big and bright and if there was one place that the Empire wouldn’t be able to touch him, it would be there.

It was harder than he anticipated getting across the border. He was young and blonde and chubby, with no family in sight. It would be easy to pass himself off as a refugee, but where would that land him? Would that lead him somewhere safe?

In the end, it worked out to his benefit.

He eventually found a place to live. A school to take him.

And he met Noctis there.

Beautiful, untouchable Prince Noctis, with his dark hair and cool expression and his weird, letter-writing, nice smelling girlfriend.

Prompto had seen him around before, but it wasn’t until that letter that he ever thought to approach him. Why would he? Be quiet, be safe. One couldn’t exactly stay off of the radar if they became friends with the prince. What if the Kingsglaive started asking questions?

Be strong.

If he became strong, then maybe it wouldn’t matter if he was friends with a prince. He’d be able to defend himself, and maybe even Noctis too.

The first time that Noctis smiled at him, he realized that perhaps he wasn’t safe after all.

.

“I can’t,” Noctis whispers, after.

Rain licks across his brow, but he feels nothing, his body gone numb all over. All that anger that had sustained him during the long, slow fight back to the outskirts of his city - gone. His mouth tastes like ashes and his chest aches fit to burst and he can’t wrap his mind around it, that his father- his father-

The phone tumbles from his fingers, landing in the muck with a horrible, wet sound. He falls to his knees next to it, his chest heaving for a breath that just won’t come. The panic sets in slow, white noise in his ears and he shudders, feels the urge to scream loud enough to bring every imperial flagship down on them right now.

“Noct,” Prompto whispers into the quiet, his voice subdued and thick with pain.

“I can’t,” he gasps again, hand going to his throat in an attempt to massage the knot away. His eyes prickle and overflow, and it hurts- everything hurts so much.

A king wouldn’t cry, Noctis thinks, and that’s it; that’s the breaking point. Everything is immediately too much, because it feels as if he shatters into a million pieces, wailing his grief to the sky and sending his fist smashing to the ground.

It doesn’t do what he wants it to. The violence doesn’t make his father any less dead. But it’s something that he never would have done - a scene that Noctis could never envision his father a part of - mud smeared across his knuckles and spattered all down his front, fist aching from impact.

Someone drops to their knees next to him, and he knows immediately that it’s Prompto. Even grief-stricken and numb with shock, he can still sense his friends. Gladio and Iggy in his peripherals, dutifully keeping watch, and Prompto, always right there next to him.

Prompto tentatively slides one hand down his back, the other going up, until there are fingers sliding through the hair at the nape of his neck, and tugs him closer, until Noctis’ nose is pressed to the blonde tufts of hair that are curling faintly in the rain.

“Shh, buddy,” Prompto says, his voice strained. “I got you.”

Prompto smells like rain and sweat and gunpowder, the stink of travel and faintly unwashed male, but he’s warm and familiar. A king wouldn’t do it, but his father is dead. His country is burning. And for all his kingdom knows, their prince is dead too.

Noctis pulls Prompto closer anyway.

.

A king wouldn’t-

Be strong. Be quiet. Be _safe_.

.

“I just got you back,” Prompto says quietly, words muffled into the curve of Noctis’s neck. There are soft, silken hairs along Noctis’s jawline now where before there had just been smooth skin. Prompto rubs his cheek against it, touches reverent fingers to the lines of his face. The broader jaw, the defined brow, all the places where Noctis’s baby softness has eased slowly and carefully into adulthood.

Somewhere, hidden away from the rest of the world, Noctis had grown into a king.

Ten years - ten _horrible_ years - and Prompto would have given anything to watch it happen.

He’d thought that ten years would have been enough to dull the pain, and for a time, it had. He hadn’t spent a decade mourning a man lost inside a crystal. He hadn’t had the time. He would go weeks without thinking of Noctis, not because he was recovering or getting over his loss, but because he was too busy surviving.

The years had blended together after awhile, blood and pain and tears, and of course, the ever present darkness.

Now, with Noct in front of him, different but still soft under Prompto’s hands, the pain is fresh again.

“I know,” Noctis whispers, and kisses him.

Prompto sucks in a sharp breath, blinks hard to dismiss the tears that well to the surface. The tent is quiet, just the faint rasping of the wind outside, the quiet murmur of Ignis and Gladio’s voices outside, the crackle of the fire.

 _Why now_ , Prompto thinks and shudders hard, his mind flinching away from the answer.

He knows why.

 _Why now, why now_ \- a distant part of him shrieks, but Prompto forces it quiet, and makes himself pull back and look at Noctis.

There’s a flush across the bridge of his nose, his lips dark and ever so slightly wet. He meets Prompto’s gaze easily enough and holds it without a hint of pride or shame. 

“I’ve spent a long time pretending that I don’t want this,” Noctis confesses quietly, his hands sliding down Prompto’s body until they’re framing his hips. He leans in and presses a gentle kiss to the tip of Prompto’s ear. His cheek. Eyelid. The corner of his mouth. “It was so important to me,” he hisses, “and I still don’t know why.”

Noctis takes Prompto’s jaw between his hands and presses another careful, too chaste kiss to his lips.

“I want this,” Noctis whispers.

 _Why now_ , Prompto wants to whisper. He chokes on the words, makes himself swallow them down, and with tears in his eyes, he kisses Noctis back.

He pushes Noctis back onto the pillows and lets himself - lets _them_ \- have this.

Just this.


End file.
